Before we left for a hike this morning we saw a Dingo right outside our hotel room and got a good picture. We went on a hike in the boulder strewn floor of Kings Canyon. It was very beautiful with a creek along the way. We had quite a small group and a very good guide. The temp at mid-day today was 100 degrees so doing the hike early was wise. It actually was rather shaded along our path. We are very glad we came to Kings Canyon. It was even more remote than...

This morning we left on the Uluru sunrise tour at 5:15. It had rained very hard over night and still some clouds lingered. Generally the rock looks extremely red as the sun rises, and it was still beautiful, but not as brilliant as it can be. Following the sunrise viewing we proceeded to take a cultural walk around the base of Ayes Rock. We heard several legends and saw ceremonial sites on the rock. Several of these sites are off limits for photography due t...

Yesterday we returned the camper van with plans to fly to Uluru. There had been a cyclone in Darwin the previous evening so flights were backed up and our flight canceled. We got a flight out to Alice Springs then on to Uluru. We had a 6:20 tour and were quite sure we would miss it and arrived at 6:30 and they were waiting for about 10 of us. Sounds of Silence Tour: They took us to a sand dune between Uluru and Kata Tjuta where we had champagne and canapés t...

This was our last day in Cairns. We decided to take a tour to Green Island. It was a 45 minute catamaran trip to the island which is a coral cay located within the Great Barrier Reef. We did take the glass bottom boat ride which was included in the tour. We didn't think the coral was as pretty as at Whitsunday Islands. But there were some pretty big fish. This coral reef extends for 1500 miles. Probably the best part of the day was just relaxing on the beach...

Today we traveled from Whitsunday Island to Cairns. We drove through the destruction of Cyclone Yasi. The damage extended from Townsville to about an hour south of Cairns. The cyclone hit 2 weeks ago today and the clean up has only begun. The area of destruction that a cyclone impacts is huge. If the trees weren't blown down they had all of their leaves stripped. The banana fields were destroyed in this 100 mile stretch, with beaches and communities literall...